Odd Thomas

Odd Thomas, a short-order cook in a small California town, can contact the dead and see invisible creatures called bodachs. When they start gathering around one man, he tries to prevent a massacre. Stephen Sommers directed, from Dean Koontz's 2003 novel. Anton Yelchin stars. The trail leads to corrupt police officers and explosives planted in a shopping mall. Odd stops the attack, and by then his girlfriend Stormy is dead; the film ends with him saying goodbye to her. The release was delayed for legal reasons. Lawsuits over marketing and distribution funding pushed it to February 2014. The box office was a disaster: 1.3 million dollars internationally, with no reported domestic theatrical figure. Rotten Tomatoes sits at 38 percent from 47 reviews, the consensus saying Yelchin is the right man for the title role but the film suffers from a jumbled tone. Drew Taylor at IndieWire took the other side, calling it the best Koontz adaptation by a fairly considerable margin. Who it is for: viewers who like light supernatural thrillers and want to watch Yelchin. Who it is not for: anyone looking for tonal consistency. The film puts comedy and horror in the same scene and does not quite land either.